The Rise and Fall of a Stingray
by NotMarge
Summary: Lisbeth Salander sits in her window seat and thinks.


I do not own the Millennium Trilogy.

The Rise and Fall of a Stingray

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Lisbeth Salander sat alone in the window seat of her vast top floor apartment. Her dyed-black hair hung limp over her shoulders. Earlier she'd removed all her piercings, strangely preferring to be unadorned. She now wore only a simple white undershirt and panties.

Cigarette smoke wafted up from the dimly glowing stick held casually between her fingers. It drifted over her face, lightly caressing her flat affect before floating up beyond her into the shadowed reaches of the ceiling. Her intelligent dark eyes blinked slowly and revealed no emotion hidden within them.

The room was dark behind her as she gazed out over the lights of the city. She thought of everything and nothing at all. She let her thoughts wander through her mind like schools of darting fish in the quiet murky depths of the deep ocean. Every so often, she'd reach out and pluck one out, examine it closely, and then release it to swim away from her.

Suddenly a new thought swam toward her consciousness slowly, silently, like a stingray gliding through the water. At first, she paid it no mind. But as it drew closer, she found herself watching it from the corner of her eye. It faded in and out of view, never quite revealing itself until it was fully upon her and consumed her whole in an instant.

I'm late.

Immediately she snubbed out the cigarette into the ashtray and pushed it away from her, stunned.

I'm late.

She sat there, still and silent as a sphinx.

Am I pregnant?

Now there was a new thought. Lisbeth Salander, mother.

It did not suit her. Her own mother had loved her daughters; that was true enough. But she had been so caught up in her life of being routinely viciously beaten and abused by Lisbeth's father that she could hardly be considered a role model.

What will I do if I'm pregnant?

She supposed she would have to start eating better, for one thing. Too much Billy's Pan Pizza and McDonald's Big Macs might result in an eleven-toed pig baby. No more smoking - that was another. It was one thing to poison herself and people around her that she couldn't care less about. An innocent child of her own, well that was something entirely different.

No tattoos either. She'd read somewhere that the chemicals could harm a growing fetus. No drugs, no alcohol. That might be a little frustrating for nine months. Finding random sexual partners long about month eight or nine might be a bit of a challenge. Unless of course she could find fetish people into that sort of thing. Probably. Might be a lot of work.

The list of off-limits activities was certainly growing quicker than the possible fetus inside her right now.

She tried to imagine herself largely pregnant. Skin tight pants and frayed black hoodies didn't really seem to fit the picture. Open meadows of sunflowers. Herself, long cascading hair down her back returned to its natural shade. Virginal, white dress flowing with the wind. Barefoot, maternally stroking a large baby belly protruding out before her. Eating tofu and rubbing her stretching skin with coco butter.

Seemed ridiculous.

An abortion? Maybe.

Another picture rose uninvited into her mind. Holding her baby in her arms. A helpless, innocent child. Dark hair, dark eyes. Chubby cheeks. Entirely dependent on her. For everything. All the time. Sleeping. Waking. Everything.

Boy? Girl? Twins? _Twins?!_

What would she do? Probably couldn't spend fourteen hours a day staring at her computer anymore. Shopping with the baby in a sling around her neck. Would it be bonding and warm? Or feel like a lodestone around her neck?

Eventually taking the child to school? The mother with the dragon tattoo and so many piercings helping with primary homework and packing lunches? Talking with the teacher about conduct marks and mathematics quizzes?

Maybe they would just travel. She certainly had the money. Show the child the beauty of the world. Give the child opportunities she never had. Provide for everything the child would ever need or want. Live without rules, regrets, or fears.

Well, that was another ridiculous fantasy. How could she, Lisbeth Salander, teach anyone how to live peacefully and well? And the bloodline within her DNA was so outlandish, the child would probably try to kill her before its fourth birthday.

Then again, she did have a wealth of knowledge and experience stored up to make the child into a superhuman powerhouse. And if anyone even so looked at her child the wrong way, she could just kill them. Why not? She'd already killed her father (well almost), her brother (indirectly), and Martin Vanger (well, she hadn't stopped it). She'd had countless violent encounters with numerous individuals over the years in defense of herself and others she deemed worth the fight.

How much more capable would she be when her own child's well-being was on the line?

A dreadfully monstrous mother lion, ready to tear apart and decimate any who stood between her child and its intended destiny.

Lisbeth Salander sat for a long time in that window seat, thoughts racing through her feverish mind. The thoughts piled up and up and up, derailing any other potential train of thought. Eventually, she got up and went to bed, falling into an extremely active dream state.

She dreamt almost continuously.

In some dreams, she was raising her child, a girl, in a peaceful, home in the country setting, just the two of them. The child was about eight years of age. In the mornings they cooked breakfast together and in the afternoons they took long walks beside a quietly lapping lake. She schooled the child herself in academia, computer programming, and self-defense. In the evening, she brushed her daughter's hair out as they sat next to a quietly crackling fire. The girl had inherited Lisbeth's genius mind with none of the self-destructive tendencies of the mother.

In other dreams, they hid in Lisbeth's mother's tiny locked apartment bedroom. The girl huddled behind her as Lisbeth gripped a raised butcher's knife, waiting for the madman to burst through the door and meet his well-deserved death. As soon as she would kill one intruder, another would appear and she would dispatch that one as well. Finally, overwhelmed by so many, Lisbeth displayed one final act of love and kissed her weeping daughter tenderly upon the forehead. Then, bathed in the blood of so many dead men, she twisted and broke her neck to spare her the indignity of being brutalized by the oncoming horde. Then she held the dead child's body tightly in her arms as she herself was victimized and torn apart.

Lisbeth woke with a jerk and a cry. She sat up in bed, her heart racing, sweat pouring off her thin, trembling body. After a moment spent finding her bearings, she staggered into the master bathroom and relieved her bladder. It was then she noticed it.

Blood.

She wasn't pregnant.

After completing her toiletry duties, she washed her hands. And stared at her disheveled appearance in the mirror above the sink.

And drank in her emotions.

Sweet syrupy relief mixed with bitter shots of ashy sorrow. The swirling lemony aftertaste of foolishness and impossibility.

It was a many layered beverage of the soul. Not exactly a desired, sought-after indulgence.

She decided to drown it with a stout mixture of black coffee and cigarettes.

She sat in her window seat once more, slowly and resolutely imbibing her coffee and cigarettes, staring out at the lights in the darkness.

That idiot, Kalle Blomkvist. She would really make him pay next time. And he would never know why. She almost smiled. Almost.

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******Thanks to the stargate time traveller for adding your support to this story.**

******Thanks to Nikki, Moleft, and NamesR4friends for your reviews. I'm glad you enjoyed it!**

******Thanks also to Erik for your review. You made me laugh.**


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